Sensitivity analysis of potential fuel savings by implementation of fuel economy standards for motorcycle

Abstract

Due to the decrease in the total petroleumreserves worldwide, and the growing increase in the price of petroleum, fuel consumption has become the dominant factor in the selection of the proper vehicle. However, in some countries such as Malaysia, people tend to use fuel-efficient vehicles such as motorcycles. Statistics shows that in Malaysia, the number of motorcycles is almost half of the total registered vehicles. Therefore,motorcycles as widely used vehicles have an impact on overall energy consumptions in the country. Minimum fuel economy standard can be one of the effective policies to reduce the fuel consumption in transport sector. While the main problem to set the minimum fuel economy standard is to identify the annual fuel economy improvement of the vehicle, this study aims to find a method to calculate the annual fuel economy improvement and to calculate the potential reduction in fuel consumption by implementing a fuel economy standard for motorcycles in Malaysia. The calculation is based on four scenarios of sensitivity analysis which are 5, 10, 15, and 20 %fromthe baseline fuel economy. While this study only covers the fuel economy standard of motorcycles, the method can be applied to the other types of motor vehicles without major modifications. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.